July Check-In
Hello friends, and welcome to July’s Snakes & Ladders check-in! There will probably be another of these in August before resumption of regular service in...
Hiatus Hiatus
Abbott Handerson Thayer (1849-1921) Hello friends! This is, as the title suggests, only a hiatus from my newsletter hiatus. A lot of work is being done under...
A Memory and a Miscellany
As I come to the end of a truly ... challenging academic year, I realize that I am a very tired man. So I’m going to put this newsletter on hiatus for May. I...
A Possibly Incoherent Edition
I got my second vaccination shot the other day, for which I am immensely grateful -- but wow have I been hammered by my body’s reaction to it. I wanted to...
A Fitness Trainer and an Improbable Goat
Louise Janin, A La Poursuite Des Illusions (1962) A couple of belated Holy Week treats, perhaps to be remembered for next year, but both are especially well-...
A Stone Rolled from the Mind
Last year I gave you Easter with Arcabas. So let’s do that again, shall we? Laurance Wieder, from After Adam, “Eighth”: And so, a toast: O God, the cup You...
Grief and Repair
That’s Bob Davey, who has just died at the age of 91. In 1992 his wife Gloria, who died in 2006, discovered an abandoned church in a deserted village,...
Qui, Quo, Qua
Haven’t you always wondered what Donald Duck’s nephews are called in the various European languages? Follow this link to get the equivalent data about Donald...
Country Walks, Home Again
Thanks to so many of you for your kind words in response to my last newsletter, about my dog Malcolm. With a couple of exceptions, I’ve not been able to...
Dogs
Today I just want to talk about dogs. Let me begin with two orienting statements. 1) Some people roll their eyes at the praise we dog-lovers tend to sing....
Cavaliere Wild Scull and Other Adventurers
Romare Bearden, Odysseus Leaves Circe, 1977, collage of various papers with foil, paint, and graphite on fiberboard. The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, which...
Pruning, Arranging, and How My Ash Looks
As many of you know, things have been tough here in Texas for the past week. At our house, we were without electricity (which in our case meant without heat...
Murmurations, Months, Masters
Søren Solkær’s photos of murmurations A couple of weeks ago I mentioned some of the newsletters I especially enjoy, so let me take the opportunity today to...
In Which Kafka and Wombats Make An Appearance
Sophie Taeuber-Arp, Equilibrium, 1932 There is a fairly lengthy article in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy on the vexed question of what exactly...
A Newsletter of Newsletters
This week, an incomplete but heartfelt list of newsletters that I enjoy. Not the subscription-based journalistic Substack ones, but the quirky and disheveled...
The Year of Hypomone
I’m going to do something a little different: I’m going to quote something that I wrote on my blog: I received a gift today, in the form of a post by Ian...
Snow, Cycling, Scale, and ... MENDACITY
Snow day in central Texas! — possibly the heaviest snow in Waco since 1949. A few more photos here. I know, I know — not a big deal to most of you. But here...
The Three Salernitan Doctors
Eric Ravilious, “Halstead Road in Snow” Sir Robert Burton, from his great Anatomy of Melancholy (1621): Mirth and merry company may not be separated from...
The Worlds Ae Reconciled
David Jones A Christmas Hymn by Richard Wilbur “And some of the Pharisees from among the multitude said unto him, Master, rebuke thy disciples. And he...
A Rather British Edition
Eric Ravilious The Friends of Friendless Churches rescue and care for neglected or abandoned old churches and chapels in England and Wales. I love the idea...